The Puzzle of Cell
by XanltheCSG
Summary: A story about a man obsessed with finding out who really beat Cell in the Cell Games and his downfall trying to find the truth. Not much DBZ Characters, Gohan, Videl, and Hercule have minor roles. EXPLICIT CURSING WARNING. In progress. Possible AU/fluff.
1. Looking for Clarity

_I hate every story I have ever written, so feel free to tell me anything that you feel works or doesn't work with the story. I don't care if you flame me or not, because, I hardly give a fuck about the things people say about me. I will do anything in my power (within reason) to improve my story as you (whoever you may be) see fit. This is a story I am desperately looking for some criticism for. Please, by all means, criticize to your hearts content, I'm not exactly looking for Beta Readers until this story gets some (if any) traffic. Without further ado, here's my shitty DBZ Fanfic. (In case you haven't guessed by my intro, this story contains incredibly graphic swearing, just a forewarning to those who are easily offended by the word fuck.)_

**The Puzzle of Cell  
**

**1. Looking for Clarity  
**

"NEXT!"

"Me, sir"

"You? You're a scrawny bastard aren't you?"

"Uh, sure whatever, sir."

"You look uneasy."

"I am uneasy, sir"

"Why is that?"

"Well, to be honest, sir…um…"

"Come on, out with it."

"Well…you're a giant….a giant …."

"Speak up human!!"

"YOU'RE A GIANT FUCKING OX, SIR!!!!"

"I have a name, not sir, not 'giant fucking ox.' Use it"

"Alright, what's your name then?"

"On my desk."

"King Yemma? What the hell…"

"Ok prick, what's your name then?"

"It's Prince Yemma. Hi dad."

"Now you're being a wise ass. Tell me your name and I'll get you through this line

faster."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm DEAD and am now talking to an enormous anthropomorphic cow in a goddamned business suit SITTING AT A DESK!!!"

"Just calm down for three seconds! Now, what is your name, AND this time, if you make a wise comment, I swear it'll be eternal damnation on grounds for irritating the hell out of me."

"Fine, it's Jacob."

"Let's see…I have 709,333,234,890,290 Jacobs alive or dead in the past EVER. I need a last name."

"I hate my last name. You seem to be the judge of the dead, can't you tell by like, reading my mind, or sniffing me, or something? There's something disappointing about a giant talking bull not being able to even read a mind."

"I refer you to the number 709,333,234,890,290. Can you memorize that many Jacobs? Let alone their faces? Or their last names??"

"Fine, fine."

"Seriously, just try and fathom how much fucking time…"

"MY LAST NAME IS LADDIER!!"

"Jacob…Laddier?"

"Yeah, go ahead, laugh your ass off. Not like it matters anymore. I've heard it all, 'Oh Jacob Laddier! It sounds like a man with a French accent pronouncing Jacob Ladder! And that's a biblical reference! Ha ha ha ha!' it's all the same…"

"Look, do me a favor. Can you do it?"

"Yeah, sure what?"

"Shut the fuck up as it's not even relevant to what I'm doing, and let me look up your name."

"You mother……fine hurry up though, the souls of the recently deceased are starting to look pissed."

"Let's see…Laddier, Laddier, Laddier. Ok, are you Jacob Michael Laddier from the North Capital?"

"No."

"Jacob Crawford Laddier from Penguin Village?"

"What the hell is Penguin Village?"

"Jacob Harrison Laddier from West City?"

"Yes. Now, how does the jury stand against the judgment of my soul?"

"Guilty of murder, blackmail, and practically every law about breaking and entering. Have fun swimming with Earth's worst."

"NO WAIT!!!"

"What? That's the final word. Now go writhe with the rest, you fucking filth."

"No! DON'T!!"

"Look, stop screaming. I'm phoning for the plane that'll take you there. Just stop whining and take it like a man."

"NO STOP!!!"

"Hello..? Hey Frank, we got another one. Care to.."

"DOES THAT BOOK TELL YOU WHY I DID IT???"

"……Hang on Frank, I'll call you back. What did you say?"

"I said does that book tell you why I did those things??"

"………..He he he he…….so I have to listen to a sob story? Funny how you're thinking that you're saving yourself."

"Can you just hear me out?"

"What about all those pissed souls you were talking about earlier? I thought you wanted me to speed things up?"

"Just listen, please."

"Hmm……………..Alright. Well, I'll just HOLD UP THE GODDAMNED DEAD SO YOU CAN TELL ME A STORY ABOUT A LIFE YOU DON'T HAVE ANYMORE!!!! YOU'RE GETTING ON THE GODDAMNED PLANE!!!!!"

"Wait, wait, wait!!!! S-stop what if I, um told you while you were j-judging?"

"Look, kid, I've got souls to review, you're just postponing the inevitable, you're damned for eternity. Deal with it. Even if I did let you tell you're story, I'd be judging. I wouldn't really be paying attention to it."

"I don't care, I just want someone to know what went wrong."

"What went wrong with what?"

"What do you fucking think? What went wrong with….me."

*sigh* "Ok, kid. Tell me your tragic tale of misery and woe, and you'll go to Hell after you finish. NEXT!"

"Alright. Should I start with my childhood?"

"Do I look like a fucking psychologist? How am I to know?.........Name, first and last, HEY I SAID NO CUTTING!!"

"Alright I'll start there, I guess…"


	2. The Cry of a Warrior

_I was surprised to see that people actually looked at this thing. I am actually happy. 39 may not be a big number, but that many hits off the bat and 2 reviews (well, one the first one was just a comment really) and I am inspired to continue this. First, I'd like to thank Kat, whoever she is, for reviewing and giving me some helpful tips, and I might go with her suggestions. WARNING, there is DBZ related things towards the ending part of this chapter, so reading through the beginning will be a little weird. I'll fix the first chapter later, for now I have to stop typing the intro, stop eating popcorn, stop studying for my physics test, and start writing this chapter. I have already written too much for this intro…_

2- The Cry of a Warrior

As a kid, I had always dreamed of doing what I had seen on TV for years, fighting the bad guys. I always had sort of a sense of justice, somewhere inside of me; I had a desire to make the world a safer place to be. Maybe it was all the shit that happened. My father got shot by some guy who got fucked up on too much heroin and started firing away saying that if he shot as many people as possible, Jodie Foster would start dating him or some crazy shit like that.

So obviously, that guy killing my dad was a huge eye opener for me. I realized that if my dad's death hurt me this bad, I figured, other deaths hurt other people as bad as me. Well, it was a "no shit, Sherlock" moment, but hey, I was 6. So, after school was all done and over with, I applied for a degree in Criminal Investigation.

I was on top of the world at that time, achieving your dream tends to give you a high like that. I was a detective. Best job I ever had. Chasing down people using the tiny signs they left behind was like a big challenging puzzle to me, the prize being an enormous moral reward when we finally caught whoever we were chasing.

Unfortunately, as things usually do, shit hit the fan.

It wasn't a very serious case. Just a nutjob trying to shoot a whole mall full of people. No one was hurt. No one was killed. They just got really disturbed. I took the short trip to the scene. Guy used an old ass gun. A freaking M1 Garand, not just a reproduction, an actual fucking antique from the Second World War. We took the bullet casings and analyzed them for fingerprints, eventually just looking for any sort of DNA, found nothing. We looked for samples of hair or again, fingerprints where he started shooting, nothing. We should have found something, instead we came up with zip. There was nothing to be found. If not for the eyewitness reports, this could have never happened. I asked the witnesses if they had gotten a good look at his face, no one had. I went around asking this question. Nothing. I had figured that they all took cover and couldn't look at they guy, firing a fucking gun at them, so I wasn't really all that suspicious of anyone. Until this kid came forward, about 17, I asked him the question.

"I didn't see his face, sorry." He said.

"It's ok, you're not the first one to say that."

"I imagine. No one could see his face."

"Well, yeah. The guy was firing a gun at you."

"Well that's part of the reason."

"What's the other part?" I suddenly got interested. Another side to the puzzle I hadn't grasped yet.

"Didn't anyone tell you he was wearing a gimp suit?"

I stared at this kid, wide eyed. Jesus, an S&M suit. Usually, I'd get freaked out that this guy was walking around in the thing in a public place, but with the lack of evidence he left behind and the bondage suit made me realize that this guy wasn't just some guy who finally went nuts and started shooting people, this was a planned action, and he intended to get away with it. I found myself getting mad at the witnesses, not telling me an important piece of info that without could have let this guy go free to shoot up other buildings.

I got the team together and we did an extensive search. We had our fair share of shootings in the past, and we always got our guy from the basic search we did. This was an exception, the guy planned it, and he purposefully tried not to leave anything behind. We finally scrapped together enough clues to get this guy. It took months of searching every countryside we could, until we found another crime scene. The same gun, except this time, an apartment full of people. We hadn't gotten to him in time. I found myself enraged. Actual deaths this time, and we didn't know until it was fucking too late.

This time he was easier to trace, we got some bullets and analyzed them, but it didn't lead to him. We were called by the hospital and they told us that one of victims was still alive. Wasting no time we rushed over and he gave us the spiel. He had seen the killer drive off in his car and he remembered his license plate number. We tracked him down to his house, but it had been fucking demolished! Demolished! The only evidence that could have closed this case had been knocked down and taken to a scrapyard. Fortunately, we got an anonymous caller who said he found his car. We drove over to the address, and looked in the lake, which he told us to do. There was his goddamned car. We pulled it out of the lake and found a briefcase inside which had the gimp suit in it. Inside it was a single hair.

That was all we needed, we knew this guy's name, searched it up, and found his new home. We broke into the house and started searching. Found a bunch of evidence, but he wasn't home. I stayed behind to wait for him, the others going downtown for some chow. I saw him come home with seven trash bags. He dragged them into his house and I assumed they contained bodies. It was the last straw for me, I snapped. I radioed the boys and busted into the house. He stuttered as he started his explanation, but I cut him off. I wasn't ready to hear his excuses when I had just failed to save the lives of 12 people. I put a round right through his forehead.

Long story short, he wasn't our guy, the trash bags were full of cans that he was going to recycle the next day, and I was fired, losing every license I had from my gun to my right to be a criminal investigator.

For the next 3 years I wallowed in sadness, going through various odd jobs to make a living. I resorted to drinking, heavy, heavy, drinking. I found myself enjoying staring at the ceiling, just watching my vision fade to black as I quietly passed out with a bottle of hard liquor in my hand. My whole dream, doing what I did best, and I couldn't do it anymore. The feeling of failure overcame me and I slowly got worse and worse.

I finally cleaned up through rehab and got a job as an investigative journalist. It was the closest thing I could have to detective work and I was going to take it. It still didn't fill the void, I wasn't exactly saving people anymore, and the investigation wasn't as challenging as before either. I kept doing it though, it was a fun experience anyway. It still was a bit hard seeing as I didn't have the resources or the spatial liberty to find hard evidence anymore, and had to find legal ways to find things out.

Again though, it didn't last.

I was employed long enough to witness the destruction of my entire city at the hands of Cell. I remember it well. I walked out onto the street, just needing some fresh air after spending several hours piecing together the drug addled life of some celebrity with practically half her body made of plastic and silicon, when I started hearing the screaming. I looked off into the distance and there he was, this big fucking bug with a phallic tail sucking the blood out of one of my neighbors. Seven other people were shooting at him with every sort of firearm imaginable, and the bullets just shattered against his skin. He started to, well, eat the rest of them, and I think I saw enough. Then he saw me. He ran fast towards me, so I turned tail and ran from him.

Adrenaline is a funny thing. You always hear about how the stuff and how it turns you into Superman for a few brief seconds, and for those few brief seconds, I believed it. I saw how fast he ran after those people, and I hadn't felt the stab of his tail in my back yet, so I felt I was making good progress. However, I couldn't keep the pace for long. I started to run out of the sheer muscle power it takes to run from a monster, and I started to slow down. To make matters worse, I ran straight into an alley way in sheer desperation, just looking for a way to escape.

He faced me and cackled. He had this shit-your-pants terrifying way of talking. This raspy unfeeling tone of voice as he grabbed me by my throat and stared at me with his cold eyes.

"I'm surprised, you managed a whole 30 seconds of survival." He started, cackling again, his tail closing in on my stomach.

"Good for you. However, I am in such a hurry and you are probably the last bit of energy I'll come across for a while, so I'll just finish you and be on my way."

All my life my mother has always told me, "If someone is besting you, don't show any sign of care. If their going to beat you, fake nonchalance, at least they won't get any satisfaction of beating you."

I never took this teaching to heart, it was a weird thing to talk to me about, and I didn't feel a need to ever use it, but as I felt the cold grip of death clutch my heart, and as Cell's tail poked against my shirt, her saying came back to me, and I realized that I wasn't going to show this bastard any fear.

"Do your fucking worst, you bug."

I could tell this pissed him off, he threw me against the side of a building across from me, I smacked into it, and I could've sworn I heard my spine crack into three pieces. I was in terrible pain, but I didn't show fear. I looked him straight in the eye as he slowly crossed the street towards me, brandishing his weird bloodsucking tail.

Although, no matter how cliché it might seem to me when I see it in movies, a Dues Ex Machina was greatly accepted in this situation.

My brother, probably coming to my house to tell me of the whole business with Cell, and probably to take me with him to escape, crashed head on with Cell, bam, right in the side. He moved barley an inch as my brother was grabbed from the driver's seat and had a tail jammed into his chest.

I went to go fuck up Cell to get my brother back, but I noticed that I wouldn't do much hurt to this thing. My brother backed up this point by whispering, "Just go." I tearfully took his advice and went back into my house, opening the garage and driving away. I looked back in time to see my brother just, vanish. All that was left was his clothing. I was incredibly sad, but at the same time, curious. How the hell can a man having his blood sucked out, just disappear after dying? Surely blood loss would just kill him, not implode him into his clothing. I didn't have much time to ponder however, as Cell rushed up to my car, (going much, much faster then when we were on foot) and jumped on the hood.

Thank god I couldn't see, because I smacked straight into the side of a house, and the impact knocked the wind out of Cell.

I backed up the car, which was amazingly not that smashed up, and floored it across town, seeing nothing but clothes, empty guns and bullet casings everywhere. It was just clothes, but it was such a grisly sight, knowing what happened to these people, I felt instant nausea. I saw Cell come up behind me again. I still was going as fast as my car could go. He still was catching up. He had this look, this pissed look. I don't know how I knew his looks, I knew he was pissed, but something in his face, told me he wasn't just in it for petty vengeance, he wasn't going to fuck around anymore.

As I saw this angry look in his face, I passed a military blockade of some sort and immediately, I heard the all too familiar sound of gunfire. I made it past the mountains and I guess Cell lost track of me, because I was still alive.

Months later, I had quit my job as a journalist just to get a break. I reapplied after three months, and this other guy had already taken my job, and didn't look like he was gonna quit, or get fired any time soon. I was sad, but not too broken up. I applied for a job as a substitute teacher, and when the Cell Games started, (to my surprise, he was a lot less ugly then when I saw him last) I was going to college again for another degree. I wanted to teach people, because I had already failed to do what I wanted to, and if you can't do, you teach, right?

Well, like the rest of the world, I watched the Cell Games until the cable gave out, but before it did, I was intrigued that the invincible "Mr. Satan!" was beaten so easily, and got a miraculous stomach ache before his rematch. I didn't care all that much though, I was busy being astounded at the match between the strange people and Cell. You know the ones. The mysterious band of fighters that appeared from nowhere and were never seen again. There was that tall green guy, that little kid with blonde hair and of course that guy with a bunch of bananas sticking up from his head who could glow. All I remember when the cable gave out was that blonde kid screaming, just screaming. His loud yell echoed in my mind, this wasn't a tortured yell, this was a cry, a cry of a warrior. I know it sounds like some Conan the Barbarian bullshit but, quite honestly, it haunted me. I forgot about it in the seven years that followed, I had gotten my teaching degree, and was doing a pretty good job teaching in the newly crowned "Satan City."

Cell was dead. That's all I knew. Hercule Satan, that guy…he was fucked up. High on being a martial arts champ and now he wants to go up against a goddamned giant killer bug? Being alive was the first surprise I got when he came back on the radio. The second was him being the victor. I had my suspicions, can Hercule shoot fucking lasers out of his hands? He passed it off as a trick, but was it any trick that my brother was fucking sucked inside out? I had pondered it in bed one night, just staring at the ceiling, as I had done when I was a drunk. I wanted to find out more, just one last investigation before I would stop and focus on my teachings. Hercule had fought Cell and won. It couldn't be. I just didn't see him as the winning type. Oh sure, he could beat a guy no sweat, but a monster? No, no it couldn't have been. I made the decision that night before I fell asleep. It came to me as soon as I remembered the cry. That heroic cry before the camera blacked out. It wasn't Hercule, and I was going to find out.

If he did beat Cell, great.

If he didn't, he would be taking credit he doesn't deserve. It would mean that he doesn't deserve a city, he doesn't deserve the title, and he doesn't deserve all the fucking money he got and the people who suffered the deaths of their friends and families at the hands of Cell deserved to know who actually avenged they're deaths, and Hercule taking advantage of it was fucking sick. If I found he was lying, I'd tell the whole shitting world about it.

I went to sleep that night making the decision, while the cry of the blonde kid echoed through my head. One last case, I thought. Just one last case.

_I have no idea what your definition of fluff is, but my definition is a bunch of writing that has little relevance to the plot that just takes up space in order to actually fill up a book. If that is the case, don't blame me for using it because most writers out there use this technique constantly. If this isn't the right definition, tell me what the def is on this site so I can properly recognize it and point it out. Anyway, I think this chapter had a lot of fluff. It's not that long, but it still takes up space and reading it can take a bit. I thank anyone who takes the time to read it, and I thank those who decide to review this. So please, R&R. I'll get on the 3__rd__ part after I am done failing my physics test. _


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